Page:The council of seven.djvu/259

 This sinister fact brought woe to the camp of Sir Stuyvescent Milgrim. The moral effect was considerable; the whole city was kept laughing. It was just the sort of thing, said the U. P. agent, that was likely to lose the election. In the meantime, the comedy of the Firework Fizzle was worked for all it was worth by its ingenious author. At every public meeting, in alluding to it, Sir Munt was able to make new points, while the original devisers of the stunt waxed more furious. All kinds of analogies, humorously damaging, were drawn from this affair. Soon all the world began to see that every audacious stroke of badinage was one nail the more in the enemy's coffin.

Presently a whisper arose that the greatest and most up-to-date of all Stunt elections was going to end, like the wonderful sky sign, in a fizzle. Certainly that fizzle had grown symbolical. The U. P. was in danger of being hoist with its own weapons. Even the other side—for generations Blackhampton had been notoriously a "sporting" city—did not try to minimize the humor and the significance of the case. At the end of a week of nightly fiascos, while John Endor Is Jannock seemed to wax ever brighter in the heavens and its vis-à-vis more dismally waned, the sportsmen of Blackhampton—even the dogs were held to be sportsmen in Blackhampton—took a continual delight in the affair. Sir Munt had surpassed himself. He looked like winning the election off his own bat.

Blackhampton grew prouder than ever of its Old